Charity 'Muttbombs’ Instagram Users

Dallas Pets Alive edits photos of local Instagram users to include dogs as a way to promote animal adoption.

By Cody Switzer

A Dallas animal-rescue group has found an unusual way to spread the word about dogs it hopes somebody will adopt.

Dallas Pets Alive is conducting a campaign it calls “Muttbombing.” The group searches Instagram for self-portraits of people in the Dallas area, downloads a photo, and edits it to show that person with a dog available for adoption. The group then posts the edited photo on its Instagram account and sends it to the original poster with the hashtag “#muttbombing” to increase visibility—and adoption rates—of the animals the nonprofit cares for.

In the first three days of the drive, traffic on the group’s website spiked 700 percent, said Leslie Sans, the group’s executive director. Now, people are asking for their photos to be “muttbombed.”